The Dispatch’s advertising department brought home more than a dozen awards from the Mississippi Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, including first-place awards for best magazine and retail ad.

Hip-hop pioneer Chuck D once proclaimed his words and his message were “louder than a bomb.” And there may not be as many people listening today as there were in 1988 when the song of the same name was released, but his words still hit with concussive impact.

Home fires are the country’s greatest disaster threat, but they are also the most preventable, according to Becky Thomas, executive director of the Tenn-Tom chapter of the American Red Cross.
Thomas made these comments Tuesday at a press conference at the North Columbus branch of Citizens National Bank.

While the meeting room of the Columbus Municipal Complex was all but filled, only a small handful of people spoke about the City Council’s proposed “slum lord” ordinance at a Tuesday public hearing. All spoke in opposition to the measure.

Claudia Limbert reclined sightly, relaxing her arms over a signature dark blazer. "What more could you ask?" her expression seemed to imply, as she prepared to answer questions posed by The Dispatch editorial board.

Dozens of Oktibbeha County residents gathered Tuesday morning at the intersection of Highway 82 and Douglastown Road with their coolers in tow as work crews cleaned up the remains of an overturned catfish truck in the median.

A Columbus couple was stabbed and attacked with a hammer by a man they found inside their home Monday, and a Lowndes County parolee who is at large after skipping out on a 48-hour pass may be connected, police said.

Lisa Lang, a Columbus deputy Municipal Court clerk, knows her family is lucky in the sense that they’re all alive and healthy. But standing amid the charred remains of her home Saturday, her voice was filled with emotion.